Does anyone play custom games with AI teammates? It was quite fun when I tried it last night on deity (great plain, 6 civs) with Ghandi and Mansa as my teammates; they are best researchers in the game. The opposing team consisted of Tokugawa, Isabella, and Washington. It pretty cool to be able to gift resources and pool research, and I can go into my ally's city screen and see their insane production and research bonus. Anyway, we haven't start a war with the other team, but I suspect with my player handicap, I will be a drain on my team when a war does start. With my teammates, I didn't feel as lonely in the game anymore. It is not just me against the world anymore, but now it is now the "A"-team out to dominate the world (or build a spacecraft so we can colonize a new world).

How do you do this - or is that a Duh question?

Easy, go to the custom game menu, put yourself and your ally AI civs under the same team number, and put the rival AI's under another team number. If you want to assure an easier game for your team, put more civs under your team.

awesome! will try that tonight -- I assume, though, that things like Wonder bonuses don't get shared, and that you have to actually gift tech's back and forth rather than pool them?

Seems like it would be fun to combine this idea with a single-city challenge (for you).

The wonder benefits get shared, just like in a multiplayer team game. So for example, if one civ in your team builds the stonehenge, then all team-members get +1 culture, even if you already have creative trait. If one builds the pyramid, then everyone on the team will get access to all gov. civics.

Keep in mind that there is a research penalty for teams. A team of two will not be able to produce as many beakers as they would on their own. (In other words, your research will not theoretically double, but instead because of the penalty I think with a 2-person team you might get 130% research total between the two of you.)

There's a good post on technology research that explains this in more detail somewhere.

I have had time to make only 31 turns at a level of a deity, any more I do not want :lol:

Playing with teams is fun just like in Rise of Nations. When I play in teams, I usually play a Space Race only game (w/ no tech trading allowed) in a modern or industrial start. Very fun indeed.

I got part way though a team game before the 1.52 patch (savegame didn't work after patch). I played as China/Qin with Japan/Tokugawa as my partner versus 6 civs on a standard map great plains on noble.

I ended up with a not too good starting position -- not in terms of what resources/terrain was nearby, but because I was sandwiched between four other civs. I shared a small border with my partner, but was essentially a border guard for him. This allowed Tokugawa a lot of room to expand, while I quickly ran out of space due to pressure from other civs.

For the most part I did enjoy the game -- the fact that my teammate had a strong military left me with the feeling that I could let mine lapse a little, allowing my smaller civ to focus on production of other things (going on the assumption that any attack agaist me would draw retaliation from Toku).

The problem was that throughout the game, I was and always knew that I was the weaker partner. My partner was ALWAYS the better producer, researcher, etc. I had no hope of catching up, and this left me feeling disappointed. The only thing that I had the advantage in was spreading my religion, which soon became the dominant religion across the world. But realistically, aside from a bit of extra $, this did not improve gameplay for me.

That being said, I admit that I probably played it wrong from the outset. I think that in team games you really need to accept the traits/advantages of your partner. I was so used to playing by myself that I think I focussed too much on working just MY civ.

Lesson learned: when playing as a team, make sure you always keep that in mind. It's a completely different game than playing by yourself, and if you don't work hand-in-hand with your partner, you'll being both down.

Played a bit of team last night. I got to direct the research and had my workers hook up my team mates, important resources, etc. I even minded iron with the intention of putting one of my cities next to it. My team mate beat me to that spot, his cultural boarders swallowed the iron and I couldn't produce swordsman anymore - grrrrr.

You share some things, but not others.

BTW - I played with the CONSTANT WAR option on - fun!